The evening opens with Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture, five minutes of pure, unguarded exhilaration. It arrives at full velocity and leaves the room immediately altered. Before the heartbreak, before the longing, there is this: concentrated joy. The orchestra at its most alive.

Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture follows, twenty minutes that distil the entire emotional arc of Shakespeare's play into orchestral writing of devastating precision. The love theme is among the most recognised melodies ever written, and for good reason: it is not a beautiful tune about love. It is love itself, made audible. It builds, it breaks, and it does not end well. Exactly as it should.

After the interval, the evening arrives at its centre of gravity. Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto was written after three years of near-total creative silence, following a failure that nearly ended him. What he produced on the other side is forty minutes of music that still hasn't been surpassed for sheer emotional reach. The finale doesn't resolve; it gives way. Everything that's been held finally has somewhere to go. You don't cheer at the end. You exhale.